A Very Large Expanse of Sea(68)

It was nice. There was no clutter.

“Your room is so clean,” I said to him.

And he laughed. “Yeah,” he said, “well, I actually hoped you’d be coming over today. So I cleaned it.”

I looked at him. I didn’t know why I was surprised. It was obvious that he’d made a kind of plan to come get me today. To talk to me. But there was something about imagining him cleaning his room in anticipation of my possible visit that made me adore him. I suddenly wanted to know what he’d done. What he’d removed. I wanted to know what his room looked like before he’d organized it.

Instead, I sat on his bed. His was a lot bigger than mine. But then, he was also a lot taller than me. My bed would’ve squished him.

Ocean was standing in the middle of his room, watching me as I looked over the details of his life. It was all very spare. His comforter was white. His pillows were white. His bed frame was made of a dark brown wood.

“Hey,” he said gently.

I looked up.

He sounded suddenly close to tears. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “About everything.”

He told me he’d read my journal. He apologized, over and over again. He said he was sorry, he was so sorry, but he’d just wanted to know what had happened with his mom—what she’d said to me to cause all this—because he didn’t think I’d ever tell him. He said he’d asked his mom a thousand times what she’d said to me that day but that she refused to answer any of his questions, that she’d shut him out completely. But then, in the process of searching for the parts about his mother, he’d seen everything else, too. How his coach had bullied me. Screamed at me. All the awful things that’d happened to me at school. All of it.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry they did this to you. I’m sorry I didn’t know. I wish you’d told me.”

I shook my head. Toyed with the comforter under my hands. “It’s really not your fault,” I said to him. “It’s my fault. I messed this up.”

“What? No—”

“Yes,” I said. I met his eyes. “I shouldn’t have let this happen. I should’ve told you what your mom said to me. I just—I don’t know. She made me feel so stupid,” I said. “And she said you had no money for college, Ocean, and I just couldn’t let you—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll call my dad. I’ll take out a loan. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry about all of it.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Really. I’ll figure it out.”

“But what are you going to do now?” I said. “About school?”

He exhaled heavily. “I have a hearing in a week. They haven’t officially expelled me yet,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure they will. Until then I’m suspended. I might end up having to go to school in a different district.”

“Really?” My eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Unless, you know, I manage to convince everyone at the hearing that I was actually doing them a favor by breaking my coach’s nose. Though I’m guessing the chances are slim.”

“Wow,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. I was happy to punch that piece of shit in the face. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

We were both quiet a moment, just staring at each other.

Finally, Ocean said, “You have no idea how much I missed you.”

“Um, I think I do,” I said. “I think I’d win that competition.”

He laughed, softly.

And then he walked over, sat beside me on his bed. My feet didn’t touch the floor. His did.

I was suddenly nervous. I hadn’t been this close to him in so long. It was like starting over again, like my heart had to have these heart attacks all over again and my nerves were sparking, my head was filling with steam all over again and then, very gently, he took my hand.

We said nothing. We didn’t even look at each other. We were looking at our hands, entwined, and he was drawing patterns along my palm, and I could hardly breathe as he left trails of fire along my skin. And then, all of a sudden, I noticed that his right hand was bruised. The knuckles on his right fist looked like they’d been destroyed, actually.

Gingerly, I touched the torn skin. The wounds had only barely begun to heal.

“Yeah,” he said, in response to my unspoken question. His voice was tight. “That’s, um . . . yeah.”

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

We both looked up. We were sitting so close together that when we’d lifted our heads our faces were only inches apart. I could feel his breath against my skin. I could smell him—his faint cologne, the scent that was entirely his own— “It—yeah,” he said, and blinked, distracted. “It kind of”—he took a sharp, sudden breath—“I’m sorry,” he said, “I just—”

He took my face in his hands and he kissed me, kissed me with such intensity that I was flooded, at once, with feelings so painful I made a sound, an involuntary sound that was almost like crying. I felt my mind blur. I felt my heart expand. I touched his waist, tentatively, ran my hands up his back and I felt something break open inside me, something that felt like surrender. I got lost in the feel of him, in the heat of his skin, in the way his body shook when he broke away and I felt like I was dreaming, like I’d forgotten how to think. I missed you, he kept saying, God, I missed you, and he kissed me again, so deeply, and my head was spinning, and he tasted, somehow, like pure heat. We broke apart, fighting to breathe, holding on to each other like we were drowning, like we’d been lost, left for dead in a very large expanse of sea.